Formal Metadata

CC Attribution - ShareAlike 3.0 Germany:You are free to use, adapt and copy, distribute and transmit the work or content in adapted or unchanged form for any legal purpose as long as the work is attributed to the author in the manner specified by the author or licensor and the work or content is shared also in adapted form only under the conditions of this license.

next half hour which is going to be a keynote conversation and this conversation is going to be held between Richard Allen who is the director of policy for Europe Middle East and Africa and Facebook and the creator of are fantastic Republican and member of the DT tag is their stuffed with minor at this point maybe assure pillars for the Republic have have you'll using is that you it

00:45

would so that you there will be discussing for the next half hour the topic

00:51

of how to develop a policy for a global platform like facebook with these different target audiences and different cultural context please give them both a warm welcome the so the thank

01:10

at the the the the the yeah

01:24

very warm welcome from my well hello Richard Allen their Robert Allen that's

01:29

right regionalen Brazil and sorry so Richard Allen them very happy to have you here today to talk about that um Facebook public policy you are the Director of Public Policy for Facebook in Europe and so on the continents next Europe and some I'd like to talk in the 1st place about um how all the importance of Facebook for the public debate for debate in this society changes you're uh um you ways of thinking about what people may say and Facebook and may not say for example face the played a big role in problem users so yeah facebook played a big role in the revolution in Serie i in the revolution in Egypt and then face has uh plays a big role in public debate in Germany well everybody who is um is active in in politics knows that without a proper Facebook page it's very difficult to address as electors so what they're what are the rules that you have um what people may say on Facebook and how often do you develop these rules so my like this of millions

02:41

again and so I think the point is so the acid like say that you know Facebook as such as a neutral platform so we will be really clear when we think about a major political events that take place they take place because individuals often very brave individuals on the ground use whatever tools that they're they're at their disposal to effect political change this be really the comics the Middle East individual decided that they wanted to effect political change of 1 of the tools that they use without tool just as they used all modern communication tools and using very effectively into their responsibility we we think

03:16

it is important that we remain a neutral public space albeit a public space it's privately managed and so we we we can talk about it a bit more detail but I yelling at the outset we should think about that many of the public spaces that we interact with are

03:32

in fact privately managed public spaces just like this conference here today and if I engaged in hate speech with another individual at this conference and that individual objected to it they would go to the conference

03:44

organizers who would then decide what remedy to take a case that individual to told to shut up offer them out or refer them to the police it was

03:52

serious enough and so in a sense we believe that we're

03:54

on 1 of those very important public spaces like many of the spaces by by I move with injury my daily life and the we want to

04:02

create a neutral platform within which people can talk about the things that the variance of interest to them and in order to do that we do need to have rules that help us to keep that space orderly justice the conference organizers here or the managers of the hotel where I state might need to have rules to keep a spaces only yeah as you said you did you do need through the rules on

04:23

Facebook not everything is permissible on Facebook but then how do you know how to use these rules of course there are rules set by the states of this state legislation national legislation um that uh that forbids to say something publicly for example in Germany we are very sensitive to write connectivism you you can't say that um something about it and say that a new kind of I dense edges save you time say certain

04:47

things about genocide for example you can say in the illegal in them in other countries they may be may be perfectly OK and as a matter of freedom of speech so how do you set the

04:58

rules which um which statements are from OK on Facebook and its statements chief of it so I think when we the Internet services more generally internet platforms

05:07

like Facebook that this there is a sort of popular idea sometimes that the Internet is an

05:12

unregulated space and I think that that is simply untrue when you start up a service your primarily regulated by the jurisdiction within which the organization great of service whether commercial or non-commercial exists which is you and analysis of the US there and in

05:29

some ways what you're doing is you're creating a new offshore island what when I was a kid I was fascinated by off the coast of Iceland this new island critical so volcano erupted misfiling appeared and island was virgin territory but still belong to Iceland was in within the Icelandic

05:47

jurisdiction congested very relevant from media debate today on and so many ways when a new Internet platform emerges it's like a new offshore island that is attached to others jurisdiction and so they have to comply with the rules the jurisdiction the framework of actors jurisdiction and I can lead to differences in in many of the Internet services or offshore islands off the coast of California by origin will tour have evolved

06:12

since you know if it's so some in Germany creates a new service or something Uzbekistan or the United

06:17

Kingdom Old Europe you know they will have the home jurisdiction as their starting point and then within that will create a framework for the idea is completely unregulated thinkers as mythical it's that you have a home regulation and then you need to adapt to global regulations the

06:33

so you do have some some legal standards from the country of origin and in but there are many many countries on world in the world that have even stricter standards for example a according to the genocide and statements in Germany are very critical uh I know that's Turkey for example has laws that forbid certain statements about came at for example in many many countries have rules of of that kind had his facebook reacted these rules our own view

06:59

only allow statements that legal all over the world and because that would very much limit free speech on your platform I mean not the Latin in a way works is having created this Internet service as soon as you start to become significant in other countries because remember that Internet service by default is

07:17

global unless you take you know uh

07:20

technical action to stop people everywhere in the world access in your service they will by default access service on so you'll start to gain users around the world by default in different jurisdictions and then you may take active steps to make translator market into particular countries to gain user that and the further say that as soon as you start operating at scale the authorities of different countries will will take an

07:43

interest in your platform and will come to you with a request which relate to the specific local law and there are different ways of dealing with this again to take the island analogy a 1

07:54

way is to say that I'm going to have a different landing stage for people from different countries and so you have got the adore fr a difference domains that you use and you say we will restrict the restricted content on those domains mean of course that's been used by Google for a number of years Yahoo I

08:11

think a number of other companies that's

08:14

limited there in that I mean firstly it's it's sort

08:16

of our it doesn't actually stop access to the content it just stops access the content by that domain but where a country trying to be reasonable limits set that is good enough and the 2nd is limited in that if the whole point of the island the space you created is to have a global conversation having people going to separate little can songs on the island is not really the desired outcome a sort you end up doing is saying look you know it if you're giving me clear evidence of a particular piece of content is a legal I will effectively block that threat from view from visitors from your country to my islands so they can come they can enjoy 99 % of it but this small amount to content into the gate is a small amount of content that is clearly illegal in Turkey or germany or anywhere else of dinner at your request public authorities would you authority we will make sure that small content is not available to those visitors using a technology known as IP blocking which I'm sure many people familiar with the most of the major Internet service providers will now operate on that basis that would but you explain that

09:19

requires that instead face-to-face somebody who decides if a request is going to be followed a lot so you you really judge requirements for a national authorities and what I'd like to know is at what are the standards that you fall in their and what are the what is the

09:34

procedure then that you do inside a imagine there's some kind of team that has a look at these requests and that judges them in because I don't know I think it's not publicly

09:44

in could you explain the mall and how you address this request and uh um and 1 of the rules that you follow so we published our community

09:54

standards is our global standards on on the site and if you go to facebook . com slash policies your final committee standards in the around 20 supported languages now the we offer them and they will tell you that the global overall guidance on and and so the staff that deal with incoming reports in in our company will apply those rules where they see something exceptional kind cases you talk about where it's not a going so general standards the seventies claiming that is against local law then they will escalate that small set of of claims and say that just a reminder these to be clear of the edges which was was exciting as most countries commit most speech most the time as amazing how far we've actually gotten a lot of countries even where they have laws that prohibit certain forms to content don't really enforce them very aggressively and I'm that's quite helpful things they may be you know heritage laws of that have some time but not optically relevant today and so if we get 1 of those requests is valid and they do seriously want us to look at the content is escalated we will then the legal review we we will get some uh to begin the outside counsel in the country concerned to tell us you know their understanding of the law our obligations under both the local on international law and will will then having escalated that will then either do without specific piece of content will come up with a general rule a piece a guidance that all staff can have so for example and the Nazi emblems in Germany is well known the law is well known all staff can be given general guidance on that and there may be other instances where you know we see 1 of these requests in 3 years and therefore it's a one-off the items they have to be escalated they

11:32

have to be legal reviewed legal reviews a good in the uh which topic because I'd like to talk a bit more about what is individuals can do if they are confronted with the decision from your side let me just put 1 example the fan page of the left part in the European Parliament was set on the face of several

11:51

weeks ago I don't want to go into the details of the case because we can decide if that decision was right my point is year that Left Party tried

11:59

to appeal your decision and actually they just got an e-mail from Facebook stating we don't know what you talk about we don't know which page you talk about and we won't to comment on that issue so actually they did not have the possibility to read to due to address the issue with there was no conversation and you know from from my professional background I'm very much

12:19

into due process fat trial that's something that's report to mean F to a try to to do that every day and to my feeling that was not uh that was not the fat file that they

12:30

get the stages were heard in court menus as you said it in some kind of judicial review so you have some kind of a calling center faced with you decide which I'm walking request you were gonna follow that I'd like you to explain why is

12:42

there no no new process why count people appeal usage and mean again

12:48

justice a cover headlined a warning that Facebook is not perfect but I'm sure many people in the room would agree with that statement is nothing else said I faced with is not perfect we make mistakes everybody theoretically about that slot and our processes are not perfect and I that we've been improving them over time and that's really what I and my colleagues work

13:09

on is how do we get from you know something which is really quite simple operating in a relatively restricted community within a relatively restricted number of

13:19

jurisdictions and a restricted number of languages to something which is incredibly complex operating across uh um tens of countries in multiple languages with a huge array of complexity around the different legal systems of them and the content that I describe the complexity not to say that as an excuse buffer so that's what we're trying to deal with it and just give you a sense of some those improvements and so yes we get it wrong and you are just privately in and use that analogy of privately managed public spaces but sometimes people in those spaces make the wrong decision every time i've been thrown out of the bar it was never my fault it was someone else's fault about being thrown out but nonetheless I and then what I want to come back in and complain about it again I would expect the same you know I wanna be heard by the bounces I wanna be up to get back into it but what may

14:08

happen is that those staff of them busy dealing with the next a complaints to come in and that's very much where we did nothing to certain degree is where I'm dealing with the complaints the 1st round of complaints and issues of people of rabies has been so time-consuming it frankly has been hard to put in place appeal mechanisms and things like that we recognize we also need we have improved we now are rolling out a process page appeals so for the instance you describe where pages and taken down we're putting in place an appeal system for that meeting it worse it yet the person's started running out already I'm not sure how many languages is yet in again so that you know the page appeals to you need to be able to operate in each language so we're all amount the time of the what is coming the facebook I won't go to Facebook on again and again and again as wanna

14:54

give when you're dealing with things that scale all of

14:57

these principles of fair processing and fair response that we try really hard we don't want to annoy people we don't annoy users and we don't make stupid mistakes again as these terrible headlines that then stick in people's memories so we we do try hard to avoid it on both sides and when you operating at this kind of scale you know what to expect the kind of heavyweight process you get in the judiciary or expect the police and judiciary to intervene in every disputes that you have it in a domestic space or as a 1 of these in

15:27

public spaces like this I think is is unrealistic and so so the police and the judiciary will intervene in the most serious the cases with the kind of process your familiar with but in a lot

15:38

of the and so so the more immediate cases that occur on Internet platforms I think the system of private resolution is here to stay and the challenge for us is how do we make that work as well as possible as mentioned not

15:53

out there we go OK so those are the faith in

15:56

the face because not coming that uh you are in the process of establishing some some rules where uh where people can get their heels for example and the like double

16:06

review in having a 2nd review look at cases as well as the 1st review and only taking action where they agree the very systems like that you know 3 4 years ago we weren't doing with implementing progressively over time to get as good as we can but

16:21

is just and just 1 more question in addressing the issue of content walking on Facebook um that they have been going

16:28

there have been discussions about the rules that have been set that made that may sometimes be some kind of this kind of inquiry comprehensible at least for the European users of Facebook uh there's been discussion about

16:40

uh pictures of female breast being blocked on Facebook even if they they weren't using any kind of sexual context and could you please

16:47

explain explain a bit more why Facebook mn sometimes fails to bring to distinguish um if something should be blocked off and into the summer nudity think will

16:58

say kind of an American conspiracy to kind of restrict that I think it is as she related to the US release of Facebook but I don't think he is a conspiracy is just you know

17:09

this is how things evolve and I describe the beginning the way that service is a rooted in a particular jurisdiction and it it seems to be self-evident that you know the United States authorities take a particular interest in the distribution of i and you'd imagery children you know and or in places where children may be present and that's that's the reflection of of their concern and services like Facebook that originate in the United States will acquire those concerns quite naturally of for example we have a minimum age limit of 13 now most of Europe that doesn't have any minimum age live limit for internet service is indeed in many European countries Internet services like our sign up much younger children but the United States has a very clear law of copper which requires that 13 is actually use about 2 that I think implements a similar law for Europe and but we've acquired those sort of things into our rules and that now become part of a global rule sets and he said it and sometimes you do accept national laws that restrict content gets so why

18:12

don't you in this case for example except national also European laws that allow much more than 1 all would allow and that's a light discussion in to to stay within the company's people want to go as far as they can but what

18:22

we can't do is and resolve on problem calls another problem when we started off talking earlier about and the arab spring and the spread of also this within all other countries in the Middle East a lot of those countries in the Middle East will block services that have a large amount of nudity on and so we would necessary gain something if we make the European users happy by allowing more nudity if the net result is the other parts of the world and you have a prominent role change so we're not averse to rule changes we've updated or rules numerous times we do allow breastfeeding we allow for it is a breastfeeding women but to give an example on that you know we we have some of our staff I think what overzealous and under the new the rules removed pictures of women breast-feeding rescission if you go on facebook today and type in breast feeding you will see lots of butters women breastfeeding the kind of Belize ask us about the state of the last week somebody some images of women using breast pumps now the breast pump images didn't have a baby in them so the staff originally thought well that there isn't a breastfeeding voters about doesn't meet all rules and we now have to adjust or rules to say the

19:29

press bonds and breast Erekat we're constantly having to adjust the rules but what we don't want to do is adjust them In a way in a faultless way that then cause a whole lot of knock on problems and and

19:39

that's what's happening everywhere week yes we talk about

19:42

Facebook rules from we have already addressed the

19:44

question that Facebook is of great importance for public debate on these standards for public debates in in the reading public sphere are usually set by governments and people elected elements are there some kind of

19:56

democratic some uh authority the government sets rules at least basically um on them along with the with the votes of the people in

20:06

the town this have on facebook they have never heard of of Facebook elections are there any plans to really listen to users to edge medical these consult uses of the which rules they like to be the and

20:19

to assess the figures we really care for Facebook

20:22

produces no content and so all of the consonant with the political content on the platform is

20:27

produced by individuals this and where you that you but you lock you allow interiors we use this you

20:32

have ruled and these rules um prefer presents set by Facebook employees and as if they get it right they have no democratic legitimacy they're not elected any but let's make a distinction again

20:42

it you know I go to my hotel by this evening and the rules I can't walk into the hotel naked without taking action but I can say what I like politically to another individual in the I can't shout out racial abuse in the bar and you know without them taking action against so the whole set of rules that govern the conduct of the public space that don't necessarily govern the contents and you know that's the line that we really try to draw we

21:08

want to deal with harmful content uh continent that you genuinely

21:14

cause harm to others or do we comes in the leads to a disorderly or or space that the the space that that massive community of people of all ages doesn't want to be in because it feels unsafe of abuse and movement is not currently on you and

21:29

again just because users are involve constantly yeah because they create content when I welcome setting rules that was just a lot of what I said and I

21:36

mean again it's sitting there you know when you're in Facebook and the media storm every time we make a bad decision and media activist groups

21:46

individual use themselves we never get a moment when we're not conscious of what people use or service feel about the rules for operating again we we may not react quickly enough we may not act and react accurately enough I understood you when you're sitting inside the company the use of voice is very loud and clear so you don't let people

22:04

vote that you listen the exactly here is

22:07

a a consultative arrangements and effectively that addresses the that's of field that is in the government requests to come to get user data out of Facebook so I imagine that you are confronted with

22:20

quite a lot of requests that police agencies maybe even secret services addressed Facebook and would like to have the user profile of user takes us that and how do you react to

22:30

these to this request to the you you follow them what would you do you evaluate them in any way so again that there is a public policy on our side to this would or on such policies you

22:41

can look at the law enforcement at the summary public about how we operate that essentially

22:46

any law enforcement agency with lawful authority can

22:49

submit a request and what we then do it again as the sum of process I described earlier is check on the lawfulness of a process

22:57

that check whether it's consistent with generally accepted from human rights standards and norms and and then our team we have a

23:03

dedicated law enforcement team within the company that operates from the United States and from our

23:08

international headquarters in Dublin and they will evaluate those requests and if the lawful uh consistent with international human rights standards than they can and consistent with prevailing law because of course there is a lawful set of restrictions on what you can do disclosing data from the United States or from Ireland is consistent with all of those then they will work with law enforcement in those cases so

23:31

we you already have some kind of Facebook ordered that places in the do evaluate and you check if the year at the request of legal in the country where they come from and in the in the US and other areas another consistent again I think across the industry um yes year mn the EFF the Electronic Frontier

23:48

Foundation them has just use them evaluated some internet services including

23:52

Facebook when it comes to town their

23:55

policies if they inform users in they fight against uh um getting uh some kind of government requests them and they found out that the that you haven't their fault any requesting court yet and that you face users are not currently informed that their data has been transferred to government authorities do you have any plans to be a bit more transparent yeah because people can't fight themselves against warrants if they don't know that the data has been transferred in Facebook doesn't fight as well so basically there seems to be no real protection of user data from the by Facebook

24:28

all by the users themselves I do you have any plans to inform users or to protect users by fighting warrant court again do because if we have request that we thought were unwarranted inappropriate then we would find them is not is a question of whether we getting those requesting a whether what happens is that you what what happens again not just the face but what

24:49

for most providers you get a request like that you say to them no way jose we're not gonna you know me this request and the agency withdraws its mean that they don't go to court and so you have

25:00

no need to go to court as the typical arrangement takes place because you can imagine circumstances where somebody wants to keep pushing that and if they do then we would you engage in that and uh engage in that that battle as as necessary and internal inform users again that the law is the law varies from jurisdiction jurisdiction about whether or not but that's permissible arm and is alive today within the industry that how far 1 should go uh it for example would again be really honest most of the request we get from law-enforcement is escalated to us I usually involving some kind of serious crimes and so there there is a very open debate about the point at which some this should be informed about law enforcement interest in them if they were in the middle of by carrying out serious crime and and we have to engage in that debate but we don't think simple answer me most requests that come to us on all you know someone trying to get hold of data about a political activist on WikiLeaks there about they really are about some trying to get hold of data on somebody who is in the middle of conducting some horrendous complexity but still and just comparison your policy the policy of Twitter who have already for several um several warrant in the year in California courts for example and who systematically inform their users and I'm sure

26:15

that that as well will respect California law and

26:18

jewish law so I think there is some kind of soft margin that you may use in the interest of the semester is an open debate across the industry that you know where where the other reporters and we talk about the industry at large but just about what's the debate in interphase well what what would plays against informed

26:35

users and I'm a this situation I described if if you know we get a warrant in that is related to an activity that we can see is clearly an ongoing criminal activity of people use the cliche of unit paedophiles and terrorists all the

26:48

time but the reality is that all the kind of request you typically receive it somebody you know is carrying out an offense against children for example in those circumstances you have to

26:58

ask whether even if you could legally inform that person about the investigation whether or not that would be appropriate

27:04

and that's a very relevant debate to be had and again that passes 1 that in some ways this is an area where we would much rather was settled by lawmakers you can make that kind of judgment pepsin by asking the moment that's where we are and finally of

27:17

any plans on inside Facebook to publish transparency reports it's an ongoing issue of debate and and

27:24

we're looking at it we looked at what other companies have done and the of course is something that's and I I would say that adds to the public debates it's an oppose more information the public domain of and so it's on the table but there's no decision that is not some kind of public responsibility as well I mean you apply a platform including about a billion people to be really setting

27:44

standards for the industry I'm not gonna disagree with with thank you very much for being with us today mn it